Henry Petroski (1942–2023)

Henry Petroski, engineer, teacher, and writer, has died at the age of eighty-one. The New York Times has an obituary. And there’s one from Duke University.

I’ve read and own several of Henry Petroski’s books. The one closest to my heart: The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance (1990). I wrote Professor Petroski a fan letter after reading that book, and for a while we had a correspondence. His letters, always, were in pencil.

“Look! The lead!”

“Look! The lead! It shoots onto the paper as clear and pure as if it’s been chiseled with a laser ray”: “Real-Life Science Fiction Premise Plays Out As Man Employs So-Called Mechanical Pencil.”

Sardines on the screen

A beautiful short film: Inside Portugal’s tinned-fish industry. I can vouch for the Nuri brand — they’re wonderful sardines.

Thanks to Stephen at Pencil Talk for sending news of this film my way.

Related reading
All OCA sardine posts (Pinboard)

“Some rocks,” some boid

[Nancy, June 21, 1950. Click for a larger view.]

In today’s yesterday’s Nancy, Sluggo has proposed that he and Nancy wade in th’ lake. Nancy thinks the water may be too deep. “Don’t be silly,” says Sluggo. “Look at dat li’l boid.” Indeed there is a boid standing in the water. Or there was.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

[“Some rocks” is an abiding preoccupation of these pages.]

Misheard

“QAnon is a proud supporter of public television.”

No: Cunard, as in cruises.

Related reading
All OCA misheard posts (Pinboard)

[In my defense: I was at some distance from the television and not looking at the screen.]

Attics

Steven Millhauser, “Revenge,” in The King in the Tree: Three Novellas (2003).

Related reading
All OCA Steven Millhauser posts (Pinboard)

Little libraries

In Santa Barbara, California, the artist Douglas Lochner has created six little libraries in the shape of punctuation marks and typographical symbols. I especially like the inverted exclamation point, an acknowledgement of the Spanish language.

Related reading
All OCA library posts (Pinboard)

Steven Millhauser and K-pop

The group is Billlie; the song is “Enchanted Night,” which shares its title with Steven Millhauser’s 1999 novella. You can see a member of the group holding the paperback in this video. Here’s a still.

Readers of the novella will notice a clear connection: young women entering a house at night. In the novella, they are Summer Storm, Black Star, Night Rider, Paper Doll, and Fast Lane. They wear black masks and leave notes reading WE ARE YOUR DAUGHTERS.

Related reading
All OCA Steven Millhauser posts (Pinboard)

“She has seen this one before”

Steven Millhauser, “Mannequin Mischief,” in Enchanted Night (1999).

Anything can happen in the dark, especially if it’s the dark in a Steven Millhauser novella.

Related reading
All OCA Steven Millhauser posts (Pinboard)

They’ve got an awful lot of Outback in Brazil

A Washington Post reporter investigates the popularity of Outback Steakhouse in Brazil.

[Post title with apologies to “The Coffee Song.”]